CANCELED: The Behavioral Dynamics of Modifying Human Capital Resources: A Focus on Recruitment, Selection, and Development Routines

Recent scholarship has extended our understanding of human capital as a multilevel resource. This research has shaped how we think about human capital as an organization-level construct and informed our understanding of human capital-based value creation. Less clear is how organizations build, structure, and renew this strategically important resource. Yet understanding the dynamic nature of human capital resources (HCRs) is critical to ensuring that such resources maintain fit with the external environment and lead to long-term competitive success. This paper addresses this gap by developing a conceptual framework illuminating the antecedents and consequences of managerial decision-making surrounding HCR recruitment, selection, and development processes. Building from the premise that these processes are organizational routines that can be sources of both stability and change, we leverage insights from behavioral learning theory to explore adaptation of these routines. In this way, the dynamic model we build yields new insights into the role of managerial agency in manifestly shaping the HCRs that have a direct and significant impact on the organization’s performance and survival.